It’s no wonder the solo traveller feels unloved. When it comes to a break on your own, the price nearly always includes the dreaded single supplement. But your plight has not gone completely unnoticed.

Thomas Cook flag up “Offers for single travellers” in their brochures, where hotels have rooms with low or no single supplement. A supplement-free stay at Majorca’s four-star Sentido Calas Vinas Hotel in Cala Vinas costs from £419 for seven nights all-inclusive with flights from Gatwick departing May 20. Call: 0844 412 5970.

Check out Travel Zoo’s web page for the deals without supplements. You could save 40 per cent on a tour of Barcelona this month, now costing from £199. The price of two nights’ B&B at Hotel Astoria includes a cava-tasting tour.

There’s no single supplement on Archers Direct’s Villas & Gardens of Lake Como tour costing from £809. The eight-day all-inclusive deal for Hotel Britannia, which looks across the lake to Bellagio, includes a visit to the famous Villa Balbianello and return flights from London. Call: 0800 668 1892.

Search out solo trips with adventure specialist Exodus and you’ll find most of your fellow travellers will also be single. Keen cyclists can do the Turquoise Coast Ride in southern Turkey, passing lakes and villages to mountains and the coastline. The eight-day trip costs from £899 including return flights, seven nights’ accommodation, transfers and most meals. Call: 0845 863 9601.

Or try another taste of Turkey on board a gulet with singles specialist Solos, sailing off the Turquoise coast. Chartered exclusively by Solos, the eight-cabin gulet with a five-man crew will glide around the bays and islands off Fethiye, anchoring overnight with time to hop ashore at fishing villages and ancient Lycian ruins. Leaving June 10, the eight-day cruise costs from £895 including flights from Gatwick or Manchester and full board.

Singles specialist Just You has a Highlights of Tuscany tour. Enjoy delicious dishes with celebrated wines, staying at the small and charming seaside resort of Marina di Cecina. The eight-day trip costing from £849 includes seven nights’ half board, flights from London, excursions to Florence, Pisa, San Gimignano and Siena and transfers, for departures between April and October. Call: 0800 112 3311.

Friendship Travel is launching Ibiza holidays for singles. Book by April 28 to save £50 on seven nights’ half board at the four-star Torre del Mar Hotel, a package which now costs from £845. Call: 0871 200 2035.

VisitEngland Tourism Superstar

Start voting online today for England’s Tourism Superstar of 2013.

Mirror Travel and VisitEngland have teamed up to find an unsung holiday hero – a person who creates magic memories from a break in England.

The judges compiled a shortlist of 10 finalists who have all been filmed for an internet video.

Now all you have to do is watch the film clip of all 10 finalists at, then decide who’s your favourite and vote for them.

Plus everyone who votes will be entered into a prize draw to win a luxury weekend break for two in Brighton, including rail travel, dinner, attraction passes and tickets to a show.

The voting will be open until March 8 and our winning Tourism Superstar will be announced during English Tourism Week 2013, which starts on March 16, and then honoured at the annual VisitEngland Awards for Excellence gala dinner in Manchester in May.

David Curtis-Brignell, chairman of English Tourism Week, said: “The search for VisitEngland’s Tourism Superstar 2013 has unearthed some real unsung heroes of the industry, and we want as many people as possible to watch the film and witness first-hand the passion and dedication of the shortlisted candidates.

“Vote for your favourite, to be in with a chance to win a fantastic weekend away in England!”

Airline update

Virgin Atlantic is on the ball with sports fans in mid-flight. Sir Richard Branson’s airline is introducing Sky Sports content and regular updates on its new Vera Touch in-flight entertainment system.

It will be available on Airbus A330s flying out of Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester, plus on Boeing 747s flying from Gatwick and Manchester.

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EasyJet has launched an emergency appeal with Unicef to help children caught in the Syrian conflict.

Until March 15, passengers can donate on board more than 43,000 flights on 600 routes across 30 countries. The airline also announced a new Southend-Edinburgh route from May.

Fares start at £27.49 one way.

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Passengers have said “Da” to Russian cabin crew uniforms. Search site Skyscanner.net found travellers rated Aeroflot staff the most stylish in European skies. British Airways came second, followed by Lufthansa, Air France and Finnair.

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Love is in the air at Monarch. Book before midnight on Valentine’s Day and get £40 off a pair of return flights to some of the most romantic destinations in Europe, including Venice, Barcelona and Rome.

Visit and enter code LOVE40 on the payment page. Valid for travel any time.

Destination details

Follow the African explorations of Scots writer, medical missionary and anti-slavery campaigner David Livingstone, born 200 years ago next month.

He was the first European to see Mosi-oa-Tunya waterfall, naming it after Queen Victoria. Saga travellers can take the 12-night In the Footsteps of Livingstone tour to Zambia and Botswana, which includes three nights at Victoria Falls and seven nights at Chobe National Park. Prices for June start at £2,799pp including accommodation, flights, breakfast and dinner, game drives, trips and cruises. Call 0800 414 383.

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Luxury holiday specialist Sovereign has launched a February sale for ­destinations in the Mediterranean and to long haul hotspots with savings of up to 40% and deals including free board and room upgrades, free child flights, accommodation and spa and resort credits plus a la carte dining discounts. www. ­sovereign.com, 0844 415 1936.

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Stonehenge’s new £27million visitor centre upgrade is due to be completed next winter. An archaeological gallery will feature important objects on loan from local museums and outside there will be three recreated Neolithic houses. Admission is adults £7.80, children £4.70.

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Lego Mania is coming to Hampshire with the building of a 13ft vintage Thornycroft truck from 150,000 Lego bricks at the Milestones Museum in Basingstoke. Tickets for the event, between February 26 and April 14, are £8.50 (adult), £7.50 (child) and £25 (family), with some extra charges. Call: 01256 477766.

The Akureyri Golf Club is hosting the event on its 18-hole course near Europe’s most ­powerful ­waterfall, Dettifoss, from June 27 to 29. The complex is just a five-minute drive from Icelandair Hotel Akureyri where a four-night golf break from June 26 costs from £671 per ­person based on two people sharing a double room. That includes breakfast and return flights from Heathrow to Akureyri via Reykjavik.

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Shaun the Sheep is back at Cornwall’s Eden Project this half-term for model-making, mask-creating, animation stations, activity trails to complete and hidden characters for children to find. The Eden ice rink is also open (extra charge). Admission from £19.95 adult, £8.05 child, with discounts if you use public transport.

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Celebrate 150 years of Welsh steam by ­travelling on the Ffestiniog Railway in ­Snowdonia this half term.

The 13-mile narrow gauge line originally carried slate from the quarries at Blaenau Ffestiniog to the sea at Porthmadog and moved from horse-drawn to steam-hauled in October 1863. Princess, an original train from that date, will be back on the rails on a national “tour” this year after renovations.

The Ffestiniog Railway will be operating from today for a fortnight, except on ­Mondays and ­Fridays.

Adult third class tickets start at £13.50, with one child under 16 years travelling free with each adult. Additional children travel at half fare.

Website of the week

Tourism in Wales has been transformed with the opening of chic boutique hotels, gastropubs and luxury spas.

This new website, focuses on a range of hand-picked hotels, offering late deals as well as discounts.

Cruise news

A British company is to launch twice-yearly voyages Down Under and a season of cruises from Fremantle, Western Australia.

Cruise & Maritime Voyages, which operates Marco Polo and Discovery from ports including Harwich, Liverpool and Bristol, has chartered the 600-passenger Astor for the service. The ship, given a £14million refit in 2010, was launched in 1987 and is currently providing European cruises for the German market.

Its inaugural voyage to Australia – with fares from £2,399 – leaves from Rome on November 5 and will return to Harwich in May 2014 after a 40-night voyage via Mauritius, South Africa, St Helena, Ascension, Cape Verde, the Canaries and Portugal.

CMV’s move follows the recent announcement of a plan to build two new ships to operate a scheduled service between the UK and Australia. Project Orient, which includes former Fred Olsen Cruises marketing director Nigel Lingard on its board, has recruited Stephen Payne, the architect of Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, to design their ships.

Each vessel, with a capacity of about 2,000 passengers, would take 25 days to complete the voyage with proposed fares starting at £2,995, but finance for the project is still to be secured.

It’s all a far cry from the “£10 Poms” service to attract immigrants in the 1950s and ’60s. Many of them travelled on P&O ships such as the Canberra. Nowadays, Australia is a regular fixture on world cruise schedules and is building its own successful domestic cruise industry.

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Take nine days to sail from San Francisco to Vancouver on Oceania Cruises’ Gateway to Alaska cruise, departing on May 9. It now costs from £1,749pp (saving up to £1,028pp) and includes $500 credit to spend on board, return flights from the UK, all meals and soft drinks. Call: 0845 505 1920

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Join Swan Hellenic for a Dutch river cruise. The Golden Age of the Dutch Waterways eight-day trip includes a visit to Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. The £2,250pp price, for a July 6 departure, includes flights, transfers and excursions. Call: 0843 316 1715

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Enjoy the breathtaking scenery of mountains, waterfalls and glaciers of Norway’s fjords on board the Marco Polo, sailing from London Tilbury on April 16. The CMV cruise costs from £499pp, saving up to 20 per cent on the full brochure fare. Call: 0844 414 6185